Genesis 49:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Hearken, unto Israel your father This chapter calls for our strictest attention, for it contains a number of predictions which were to be fulfilled at distant periods, through a long succession of ages; things depending upon so many various circumstances, upon such remote causes, so hid to all human view, so contrary to all appearances at the time they were spoken of, that it was impossible for any foresight or sagacity of man so much as to conjecture or imagine them. And yet they were all exactly and fully accomplished; many of them in distant ages, long after both the prophet and the recorder of the prophecies were dead. And surely nothing can give us a higher idea of the Scriptures, or more confirm our faith in them, than to observe events foretold in them, and spoken of with the most certain assurance, ages before they happened, and then to see all these things taking place accordingly. But what makes this chapter of still more value to us, and more worthy of our closest attention, is, that we have here a sure word prophecy, marking out the time and some peculiar circumstances of the coming of the Messiah so particularly as will furnish us with an invincible argument, that not only the Messiah is come, but also that Jesus, in whom we believe, is that Messiah: so that, being fully convinced in our hearts, as Peter was, (John 6:68-69,) we may say with him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe and are sure thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”